Recent advances in digital communications and computer storage capacity, and processing power have provided the user with ever-increasing access to vast amounts of textual and other types of data. This also has created an increasing need to reliably sort such data for desired information it contains. This need for efficient sorting of data is ever more important because as the amount of textual data increases, the sorting of such textual data increases exponentially.
The problem described above is not solved by faster computer processors and more efficient computer storage. In fact, these suggested remedies only compound the problem.
As there is increasing access to larger amounts of data, it may overload the ability to effectively process such information for use. In fact, this massive increase in data may result in a form of "data pollution." Thus, while a potential user may be interested in a subject, he or she may not have the time, resources, nor inclination to read through the extremely large number of articles on the subject. What they actually desire is to obtain the basic information on a subject and then any additional articles that present new or different information on the subject of interest.
To properly access a database today, a user needs to explicitly formulate and specify highly structured inputs. Often, it is necessary for a user to be trained in how to use a particular database retrieval system. That is, how to formulate a proper query, and what words or phrases to use to efficiently access the database. Unfortunately, the focus often becomes the database retrieval system itself, rather than the information it contains. The larger the database, the less likely a casual user is able to get the information he or she actually desires, at least not without considerable difficulty.
Noting the above, improvements in database retrieval systems gives us access to larger amounts of information, but this access can quickly result in information overload. Moreover, the user's unfamiliarity with particular computer systems also results in incorrect choices of keywords, improper specificity of semantic relationships, or inexact context descriptions. A user, therefore, is often inundated with large amounts of redundant and often worthless information.
The present invention overcomes these problems as demonstrated in the remainder of the specification and the attached drawings.